We are all waiting

I won’t tell you the name of this northeastern urban hotel. It doesn’t matter.  It’s early morning, the lights from the parking lot leak through the drawn shade, casting a false luminescence about the room.  I am always up before dawn, even when away from home. Coffee, in the lobby, my singular objective as I quietly step out, not to wake my wife,  into the empty florescent lit hallway toward the elevator bank. All is silent as I walk past the other rooms, most door knobs adorned with their do not disturb flags. Everyone is asleep. Maybe the whole world is sleeping. I briefly enjoy this illusion that I have the place to myself, I am invisible like a ghost. I turn into the elevator bay, to realize I am neither invisible nor alone. 

Waiting at the elevator door a man, an afro American man, six foot four, maybe more. Thick muscled arms, broad chested and obviously toned under his taut black teeshirt and matching black cargo pants. Almost like a uniform it seemed. He spoke first. “Good morning sir” he said in an immediately apparent southern dialect. Not a country music twang, not a sing song drawl. His speech is metered, deep, calm. 

I overcome my surprise and return the greeting, “good morning, how’ you doing?”, betraying my own New York accent. 

“Doing well sir, thank you for asking”. There it is again. The tone of his courteousness. It’s familiar to me actually. A speech style I used to hear in DC while working for the government. The accent, not just southern, its military southern. We were quiet as we both entered the awkward confine of the elevator and waited in silence as we descended to the lobby floor. 

I look up at him. Wondered if I should. Why not I decided. “Are you ICE?” I asked. 

“No sir” he responded, “I am a Federal Marshal”. I didn’t have to probe more. He was eager to continue. “Yes, I have done that work. I only go after the bad guys. Ones that deserve it. I haven’t done that work up here, but back home.” He added almost apologetically; “I don’t like everything that’s happening.”  

I was equally eager not to offend. “I agree with you, no problem with that, I have no issue going after criminals. But it doesn’t seem right, taking those just raising families, doing their jobs.” 

We were stepping over each other’s words now. He continued, “I have been here for three weeks. They told us we would be needed, but now got orders to just wait, don’t know for what.” I just shook my head, nothing to say or add to that. Just another sense of foreboding. The doors to the lobby opened and the conversation ended. We wished each other a good day. I moving on to the buffet coffee station and he off by himself on the other side of the room, on his phone, calling his family back home, I assume. 

Later that morning with the breakfast buffet now crowded with other guests, a TV, hanging from lobby wall, blaring the morning news show. Over the din of the TV and other conversations I related the encounter with the agent to my wife. My voice carrying, a woman guest next to our table overheard the conversation and chimed into in “Oh yes, there is a whole group of those men here, in hotels all over the city.”. Then she turned back to eggs and ham. In the background the TV news announced a story of an undocumented father of a marine being taking down by slovenly and dissimilarly attired men, representing ICE in LA. No federal marshals for sure. For me, these now daily stories always seem remote, disconnected from my daily life. However, the elevator encounter real and personal. Waiting for what, I wondered? Something is coming. I could tell the agent was conflicted. Principled and loyal to his duties. But now in an unfamiliar land, likely to be asked to perform unprincipled acts. Away from his family and friends, his moral anchor.  What will he do? What about us? What will we do?

I know that most of us want to keep on sleeping. We want to put do not disturb signs on our lives’ doors. We are exhausted, however, the elevator is going down and the doors are about to open.